Text: C. F. Briggs (?), Literary, Broadway Journal (New York), January 18, 1845, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 33-34

[page 33, unnumbered:]

Reviews.

 

CONVERSATIONS ON SOME OF THE OLD POETS. By JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. Cambridge: Published by John Owen, 1845.

A BOOK is not worth much when its title page conveys a clear idea of its contents; for the title of a book is like a man's name, which only serves to distinguish him from other men, but gives no notion of his character. “Lowell's Conversations” which is emblazoned on the illuminated cover of this little volume, is a much better title than the longer one. They are conversations, but not exclusively on the old Poets, as the title seems to promise; for of the whole constellation of Old Poets there are but three whose names are used by the author as pegs to hang his thoughts upon. Chaucer, Chapman and Ford, form the subjects of the three Conversations of which the volume is composed. The largest space is given, as it should be, to Chaucer, as possessing the most merit and being the least known. But whoever takes up these conversations expecting to encounter such criticism as he has been used to in reviews and magazines, will doubtless lay them down with such feelings of pleasurable disappointment as one experiences who bites a seckle pear for the first time, anticipating the flavor which other pears had yielded.

It would hardly be just to say that the great charm of this book is its sincerity, for that is the great charm of all good writing, but it is nevertheless so sincere that it seems like a peculiar merit. Mr. Lowell's prose style is more his own than that of his poetry; it is more natural, clear, earnest, warm and unaffected; while it resembles the style of no other writer, it never startles you or impresses you with an idea that you have discovered something new. You seem to inhale it as you do the air — without an effort. Its sentences fall upon your mental ear like snow Hakes upon water, and so noiselessly incorporate themselves into your own thoughts that you are unconscious of their increase until they begin to run over. It is the most readable style that we know, and the least cloysome; although like the air it is so light as never to weary; yet, like the air, it has a terrible force when it is blown against you. Its gentlest whisper is as indicative of strength as its most terrible blast; because they are both caused by a power which we cannot discover.

They come of themselves, and so seem fuller of might than if we saw the mechanism by which they are moved; as the smallest insect that crawls contains within itself a more awe-inspiring power than the hugest steam engine that mortal hands ever framed. In the writings of most men we can discern the source of their style, we see how it was formed, what grammar aided in its construction, and what pedant moulded it, but in the writings of a man of genius, there is a breath which we have never felt before, a tone that no one beside has uttered, which we recognize as divine, because it is new. A somnambulist had one of Lowell's manuscripts put into his hands and was asked how it impressed him; he [column 2:] replied that it made him feel warm and comfortable. This we have no doubt will be the reply of nearly all who read these “Conversations.” They will be found warm and genial, except to a few, whom they will render hot and excited; for they contain certain expressions that will fall like molten lead upon the minds of some. We have no right, surely, to object to these, for if the author saw fit to put them forth it is an affair of his own; his purpose was to publish his thoughts and not to make friends. He knows what the world is composed of, and what he has to expect from it; there is not a sentence in the volume, nor, indeed, in any thing that he has written, which seems to say, “I hope I give no offence.” On the contrary, he seems to feel that offence is inevitable to all who speak the truth in the integrity of their hearts.

The conversations are between John and Philip, who have such a marvellous sympathy of tastes that we cannot easily discern, without looking, who it is that speaks. But for some -reason John is not an abolitionist, while Philip is. And we may as well disburthen our mind of the feeling here, as to keep it encumbered, that Philip's anti-slavery principles are somewhat too obtrusively put forth. There are other virtues than abolitionism: why not out with them? It smacks of generous bravery to confess to an unpopular virtue, but it is more brave not to confess at all. We should doubt the charity which boasted itself; or the chastity; or piety. We see no need for an abolitionist to wear a badge, like one of Father Mathew's disciples, to let the world know he is not what be once was. If every virtue must have its order of merit, our citizens will wear more decorations than the hero of Waterloo. It is an old saw that actions speak plainer than words. No man need fear but that he will be perfectly understood; whoever hates slavery will never be mistaken for one of its friends. There are a few ideas on art which break out in different parts of the conversations which are heterodox to our apprehensions: but this may be owing to a misconception of terms rather than to any difference of principles. Where there is so much to approve and admire we are not displeased to find something to condemn, for if it were not so, we should fear that our eyes were blinded by partiality. But it is a peculiarity with us, at least we have always thought so, to have a quicker eye for the faults of those we love than for others.

There are few readers who are not familiar with Leigh Hunt's criticisms on Chaucer, and probably none more so than the author of these conversations; but we see nothing in his conversations to remind us of that daintiest of critics. Their styles and habits of thought are so dissimilar, that it could not well be otherwise. Hunt's criticisms are neat and artist like, while Lowell's are exceedingly free, and resemble criticisms as little as possible. They are loving comments, hut so interspersed and enriched with other topics that they do not appear like comments upon Chaucer more than upon any thing else. We make a few extracts at random, which will hardly convey; an idea of the book, which must be read entirely more than once to be justly appreciated.

THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF GENIUS.

“I do not believe that Shakspeare never thought of posterity, nor that any man was ever endowed with marvellous powers, without being [page 34:] conscious of it, and desiring to make them felt. No man of genius was ever so fully appreciated by contemporaries as to make him forget the future. A poet must needs be before his own age to be even with posterity.”

CHAUCER.

“There is in him the exuberant freshness and greenness of spring. Every thing he touches leaps into blossom. His gladness, and humor, and pathos, are irrepressible as a fountain. Dam them with a prosaic subject, and they overleap it with a sparkling cascade that turns even the hindrance to a beauty. Choke them with a tedious theological disquisition, and they bubble up forthwith, all around it, with a delightful gurgle. There is no cabalistic undine stone, or seal of Solomon that can shut them up forever. Reading him is like brushing through the dewy grass at sun-rise. Everything is new, and sparkling, and fragrant. He is of kin to Belphœbe, whose

“Birth was of the womb of morning dew,

And her conception of the morning prime.”

Nothing can be more unlike Leigh Hunt than this. Hunt is forever reminding you how charming the country is, but he never takes you there. Our author says nothing about the country, but you feel all the while as though you were treading on turf. The reason is that one was bred in the town, the other in the fields. “Reading him is like brushing through the dewy grass at sun-rise.” The sentence makes the air redolent of clover.

BYRON.

“It was not till our own day that the poets discovered what mystical significance had been lying dormant in a capital I. It seems strange that a letter of such powerful bewitchment had not made part of the juggling wares of the Cabalists and Theurgists. Yet we find no mention of it in Rabbi Akiba or Cornelius Agrippa. Byron wrought miracles with it. I fear that the noble Stylites of modem song, who from his lonely pillar of self, drew crowds of admiring votaries to listen to the groans of his self-inflicted misery, would have been left only to feel the cold and hunger of his shelterless pinnacle in Chaucer's simpler day. Byron always reminds me of that criminal who was shut in a dungeon, the walls of which grew narrower and narrower every day, till they crushed him at last. His selfishness walled him in from the first; so that he was never open to the sweet influences of nature, and those sweeter ones which the true heart finds in life. The sides of his jail were semi-transparent, giving him a muddy view of things immediately about him; but selfishness always builds a thick roof overhead to cut off the heavenward gaze of the spirit. And how did it squeeze the very life out of him in the end! His spirit was more halt than his body. It had been well for him had he been as ashamed, or at least as conscious of one as the other. Ile should have been banished, like Philoletes, to some isle of Lemnos, where his lameness should not have been affective and contagious. As it was, the world fell in love with the defect. Some malicious Puck had dropped the juice of Love in idleness’ upon its eyes, and limping came quite into fashion.”

We do not agree with Mr. Lowell in all of what follows. If we have not the sky-lark and the nightingale, we think that no Eden could be complete without the Oriole and Bobo’-link. And as for the nightingale, we have an owl in this latitude which makes a midnight plaint more dismal sweet, more touching, trembling, tear-compelling, than any that we ever heard made by the poets’ bird.

THE NIGHTINGALE.

“Let me read you an exquisite stanza from ‘Troilus and Creseide.” [[‘]] It tells you how Creseide first avowed her love. There is nothing more tender in Coleridge's Genevieve.

‘And as the early bashful nightingale

Doth hush at first when she begins to sing,

If chance she heareth any shepherd’a tale,

Or in the hedges any ne.tling,

And then more boldly doth her voice outring;

Cressid right so, when her first dread was spent,

Opened her heart and gave her full love vent.’

“I know not where the nightingale is more sweetly touched upon. Shakspeare has alluded to it once or twice, but not with enthusiasm. Coleridge, in one of his early poems, has given us a high strain of music about it. Milton's sonnet is not so fine as most of his, though the [column 2:] opening is exquisite. Keats has written, perhaps, the best ode in the language, upon the bird. Wherever the learned fix the site of Eden, it wall never be in America, where we have neither the nightingale nor the sky lark. Yet we have the bob-o’-link and mocking bird in rich compensation. Nor are we wholly without music at night. I have often heard the song sparrow and robin at midnight, and what solitude would be quite lonely wanting the mournful plaint of the whippoorwill.”

POETRY.

“The best poetry always comes to us leading by the hand the holy associations and tear-strengthened aspirings of youth, as Volumnia brought to Coriolanus his little children, to plead reproachfully with us, to be tender and meek, and patient. The passages I love in the poets give me back an hour of childhood, and are like a mother's voice to me. They are as solemn as the rustle of the Bible leaves in the old family prayers. The noisy ocean of life hushes, and slides up his beach with a soothing and slumbering ripple. The earth becomes secluded and private to me as in early childhood, when it seemed but a little meadow green, guarded all round with trees for me to pick flowers

THE DIGNITY OF POVERTY.

“Perhaps actual want may be inconsistent with the serenity of mind which is needful to the highest and noblest exercise of the creative power, but I am not ready to allow that poverty is so. Few can dignify it like our amiable prose poet, whose tales are an honor even to the illustrious language they are written in; but there is none for whom it has not some kind lesson. Poverty is a rare mistress for the poet. She alone can teach him what a cheap thing delight is — to be had of every man, woman, and child he meets; to be gathered from every tree, shrub, and flower; nay, to be bought of the surly northwestern wind himself, by the easily paid instalments of a cheerful unhaggling spirit. Who knows the true taste of buns but the boy who receives the annual god-send of one with election day? Who ever really went to the theatre but Kit Nubbles? Who feels what a fireside is, but the little desolate barefooted Ruths who glean the broken laths and waste splinters after the carpenters have had a full harvest Who believes that his cup is overflowing but he who has rarely seen anything but the dry bottom! Poverty is the only seasoner of felicity. Except she be the cook, the bread is sour and heavy — the joint is overdone. As brisk exercise is the cheapest overcoat for the body, so is poverty for the heart. But it must he independent, and not of Panurge's mind — that to owe is a heroic virtue. Debt is like the ingenious mechanical executioner I have read of somewhere, which presented the appearance of a fair woman standing upon a pedestal with three steps. When the victim mounted the first, she opened her arms; at the second, she began to close them slowly around him; at the third, she locked him in her iron embrace forever. On the other hand, however, poverty has its bad side. Poverty in one hour's time shall transport a man from the warm and fruitful climate of sworn brotherhood with the world, into the bare, bleak, desert, and polar ice-field of distant country-cousinship; and the world's whole duty of man towards him, becomes on a sudden the necessity of staving off asking him to dinner.”